A Slow and Creeping Thaw
by labonsoirfemme
Summary: Her son falls ill while Robb is hunting for game in the endless black of the Long Night, and Myrcella longs for warmth in more ways than one. A one-shot written for Ships of Ice and Fire.


Written for the Game of Ships: Ships of Ice and Fire tumblr challenge, day two: Illness.

* * *

From the moment she wakes up in the morning until she drifts off at night, Myrcella is cold.

Freezing.

_Frigid_.

Morning and night are laughable terms these days, of course, ever since the Long Night sank its claws into the continent nearly a year and a half past. First, the days shortened, the sun dropping down through the sky for many moons. Then, the sun skimmed the horizon, a semi-circle of hazy orange that set the pines outside the walls into a sort of macabre silhouette. Then, it simply stopped rising at all. Maester Jase holds the charge of keeping the time for the whole castle, and the kitchen maids have very particularized molds to use for his candles. Only after Maester Jase has his stock of candles is the rest of the household provided with the precious tapers. They have no idea how long this Winter will last, and Myrcella had ordered all leftover stubs to be melted down, used, reused, and reused before the kitchenmaids could touch the beeswax stocks in the cellars.

No—she can't start obsessing over their stocks right now. Winter wind howls and beats against the stone walls of Brandyn's room and Myrcella shivers violently, even though the cold air itself is kept at bay by the double-shuttered windows and the heavy tapestries hung over them. Still, she leaves her son's bedside and places another log onto the fire in the grate. Maester Jase had told her that heat would help break his fever, after all, and it's just so _cold_.

Her son's skin is damp and steamy when she presses the backs of her fingers to his cheeks and forehead. He's still a babe, but barely so, his chubby cheeks and kicking legs lingering for now, though attached to a little boy who wiggles and whines until he frees himself from her arms to toddle about on the rushes. There's no giggling tonight, though, no playful screeching to fill the quiet halls. Furs and blankets cover him to his neck, and his copper curls shine dark with sweat against his scalp and pillows.

"Mama," he whimpers, his eyelids fluttering. His green eyes and soft voice are all that he has of her—the rest of him is Tully hair and House Stark's not-so-pale skin. _The First Men's Blood_, Old Nan had explained as she'd peered down at the squalling babe in her fragile arms, her voice thin and reedy only hours after Brandyn's birth and hours before her own death, and they had come over from Essos, after all. "Mama, thirsty."

Brandyn's face screws up, and Myrcella feels like a blacksmith's anvil has come to rest on her chest. Maester Jase has given him only the slightest touch of milk of the poppy, barely enough to take the edge off of the aches and pains wracking his little body. She crosses to the fireplace, where water stays warm in a pot near the flames, and fetches him a small cup of it. Only two years past, she would have been able to cut it with honey and lemon as her own mother had done, but such extravagances are impossible now.

He's greedy for it, and Myrcella has to keep batting his hands away as she pours the water slowly, lest he spill it all over himself. "Papa?" he croaks when he's finished sucking it down, blinking up at her with a hazy gaze.

"Soon, little cub," she tells him, as she always does. "Soon."

The truth is, though, that she has no idea where Robb is—he's deep in the heart of the Wolfswood with a handful of men and Grey Wind, Summer, and Shaggydog, hunting for elk and deer to bring back to be butchered, salted, and shut away into the cellars. He's been gone nearly a sennight and had refused to take ravens to send back in case Myrcella or Jase had need of their flock. _I'll come back or I won't_, he'd told her from the back of their healthiest, sturdiest mount, and that had been that. There's nothing out in the Wolfswood bigger than the Starks' wolves, but she still fears receiving word from the gateyard that the wolves have returned all alone, with nary a hunter or Robb in sight.

It's not the first time that Robb has left Winterfell in the hands of Myrcella and Bran, nor is it the longest, and she's never _missed_ him. His absence had merely meant an empty space at the table, one fewer voice in the conversation, and private time in the evenings with her books and writing without the worry of being interrupted mid-sentence by one of his nighttime visits. Her mother would crow at this, she's sure, if her mother were capable of anything these days other than plotting and scheming from her luxurious (locked) apartments in King's Landing.

This time, though, there's an anxiety that trips along Myrcella's spine and causes her to worry the ends of her sleeves and pick at the dry skin around her nails. It's so cold here _inside_ of the castle walls—out there in the elements, Robb must have blue lips and fingers, even if he does give in and lie down next to Grey Wind at night. The snow beyond the walls is so high now that only draft horses can break through them, and the darkness can only be cut with blazing torches. Despite her husband's unfailing hardiness, she worries that he'll be thrown from his horse and freeze in the snow, or he'll be separated from the others, or something worse.

Brandyn coughs again and shivers in his sleep, and Myrcella smooths his covers down with a hand. When Robb had left, Brandyn had been giggling and healthy, tugging on his father's beard from Myrcella's 's nothing that would have killed a healthy child in Summer, but this illness fell on a child who had never seen the sun. He'd been born when the sun still struggled to rise above the treetops, but by the time he'd been able to hold up his own head, nothing but a day-long twilight had remained. _Come quickly, Robb_, Myrcella thinks, taking her son's little hand in her own. _Brandyn needs you_.

* * *

It's Brandyn who wakes her, actually, his sleepy little voice babbling on the edge of her consciousness. A quiet, deep voice responds in low murmurs and Myrcella blinks herself awake and rolls over. Robb kneels by the side of the bed, his bare hand stroking over Brandyn's hair.

"We woke your mother," Robb tells Brandyn, lifting his tired eyes to Myrcella's. His face is pink and raw from the wind and he's still in his riding clothes—even the hand that hangs on to the edge of Brandyn's bed is still gloved. "I came as soon as I heard."

"Mama," Brandyn coos, turning his head on the pillow. "Mama, Papa." He sounds awake and lucid, and Myrcella pushes herself up onto her elbow to peer down into his face. His green eyes are bright, but not glassy, and his hair has dried into crazy swirls and cowlicks. Myrcella presses her hand to his chubby cheeks and sighs.

"His fever broke," she says with a tremulous smile. "Finally. Finally."

"Bran said that you've been with him this whole time," Robb tells her, letting Brandyn pull off his other glove and play with it. "Have you been making sure to take care of yourself? I don't want you to get sick as well. Winterfell would come down around our ears if you did." He says it with a wry smile that pulls at his chapped lips, but she hears the sincerity underneath the jape and returns his smile with one of her own. Her Uncle Tyrion used to say that Myrcella had her mother and Uncle Jaime's beauty and his own mind, and she knows which attribute has been most valuable to Winterfell since the Long Night began.

"Don't worry, I'm well." She should ask him how many heads of game he brought back, tell him that Borik has shored up a snowdrift to freeze some of the carcasses, talk to him about the raven she's received from Arya and Tommen. That's what their marriage has been built on, after all—a distant cordiality in running Winterfell and the North while Lord and Lady Stark stay in King's Landing. But she doesn't want to talk about any of that, not yet. "And you?" she asks instead, elaborating when he cocks his head at her: "You're well?"

"Aye, I'm just fine." Brandyn's eyes are blinking more slowly now, and from the dim fire in the grate, Myrcella guesses that it's well-past dinner time—what she would have called "night" back when night and day were two different things.

"Does Jase need to look at anything? Like your toes? You're not hurt anywhere, are you? Have you eaten anything yet?" She's babbling a bit, she realizes, probably from worrying over Brandyn so much, but Robb doesn't seem to mind. He reassures her that he's _fine_, truly, and completely intact, and returns his attention to Brandyn.

The babe has finally given himself back over to sleep, his little chest rising and falling steadily under Myrcella's hand with only a hint of wheezing. "He was quite ill, wasn't he?" Robb asks, his voice quiet again now that Brandyn slumbered, and Myrcella nods.

"Robb, I thought you wouldn't make it back in time," she admits. "Even earlier today, I was so afraid—" Her tight throat cuts her off, and she's grateful because she doesn't know if she can even voice the words. She feels a tear roll down her cheek and ducks her head to hide it, but Robb rises and leans across Brandyn to press his lips to the track it leaves behind. She starts in surprise, because physical affection outside of Myrcella's bedchamber is just something they don't _do_, but his hand cups the back of her head gently and he kisses her skin again when she hiccups. "I'm sorry—he just kept asking for you."

"He did?" The words come as a huff against her cheekbone, and she nods. "I missed him, so much. And you, as well. You're a sight for sore eyes, 'Cella."

The bedchamber nickname along with the scent of sweat and pine sends a shiver down her spine, but she covers it up with a chuckle. "A sennight out in the dark and cold? I imagine you would find any woman as such." It's a jape that sprang forth from her own nerves, one that's meant to push him away and give her some air, even though she knows that he no longer keeps his bed warm with other women. But when he does pull away with a laugh of his own, hand falling out of her hair, she feels cold again. Alone. "You may come to me tonight," she blurts out. "If you're not too tired, that is."

Robb sets his hands on his hips and his blue eyes on her. "You won't want stay with Brandyn?" he asks after a beat. "Bran says you've been sleeping in here as well."

If backed into such a corner, her mother would have tossed her hair and unsheathed her claws and threatened to retract the offer, but Myrcella hasn't seen her mother since she left King's Landing years and years past. And Robb has been kind to her, always, both within her bedchamber and without, so Myrcella meets his eyes with a level gaze that, at the very least, would have made her mother proud. "Now that his fever has broken, he'll be fine. I've missed you, too."

It feels awkwardly-dropped-off to Myrcella's ears, and she thinks about adding _I was worried about you_, but decides against it. She's said the truth, after all, and she wants _Robb_, not his pity. She doesn't want to guilt Robb into giving her affections. Still, her words seem to have an effect on Robb, since he's giving her a cheeky smile. "Well, I'm tired, but I'm not so tired to turn down an evening with a Princess. I'd best go bathe, then," he says, and gives her a wink when he leans down to kiss Brandyn's forehead. Then, a pause in his ascent and a downward twitch of his eyebrows is all the warning Myrcella gets before he surges forward over Brandyn's body and catches her mouth with his own.

His lips are _very_ chapped and raw, but he doesn't pull back in pain when Myrcella's muscle memory kicks in and she opens her mouth wide under his. In fact, he groans a bit and slides his tongue forward to meet hers and, _oh_, but the urgency of his mouth makes Myrcella's heart stutter in her chest and her thighs squeeze together. "Bath," he murmurs, catching her lower lip with his teeth. "You'll be in your chambers?" Myrcella nods, eyes still closed, and he leaves on quick footsteps. Only after the door shuts does she force her eyes open again.

The guard in the hall moves into Brandyn's bedchamber when she asks him to, and with a whispered thanks, Myrcella wraps her heavy shawl around her shoulders and hurries down the hall. She's moved into Lady Stark's bedchamber, just as Robb has taken over his father's. It's the warmest room in the keep, yet Myrcella still shivers when she closes the door behind her and throws another log on the roaring fire in the grate. She knows it's a jape among the servants—that the southern princess who runs the keep with a lean efficiency to make even the old Kings of Winter proud can barely stop her teeth from chattering—but she still shucks her clothing, splashes her face with warm water, and dives beneath her furs and blankets as quickly as she can.

It takes several minutes for her body heat to warm up the little pocket she's made, and Myrcella closes her eyes to wait. The bed is centered in front of the fireplace, and the flames make swirls of flickering orange behind her lids. It's almost like sunlight that way. She and Tommen used to nap in the Red Keep's gardens, and the sun filtered through the branches just like this. She hasn't seen Tommen in what feels like forever, too. He'd left King's Landing along with Myrcella and Arya, and Lady Stark had given him and Arya over to Uncle Renly's care at Storm's End, then headed northward with Myrcella. She misses him with an ache deep in her heart. Maybe when this Winter is over, she'll take Brandyn to see his aunt and uncle and great-uncle. Maybe by then he'll have a little cousin to play with. (She doesn't miss Joff, not one bit. Luckily, he doesn't write her—or anyone, really, and Robb is tightlipped when she asks him why Lord Stark still signs all the orders and letters from the Red Keep when Joff came of age years ago—so she has no reason to be forced to write to him either.)

She's half-asleep when she hears the door to her bedchamber open and close. "Awake?" Robb murmurs by her ear, but she's already blinking the sleep away and rolling away from the edge of the bed to make room. He smells of soap and clean linen and her fingers squeak a bit when they push through his wet curls. His lips are softer now and Myrcella runs her tongue over his bottom lip, tasting—"Olive oil," Robb chuckles, nuzzling her ear. "Jase snuck a bit to me when he saw the state of my mouth."

"Don't tell the kitchen maids—they'll rush his cell door." She sighs at the weight of his body when he settles down alongside her, and he exhales heavily through his nose when he kisses her.

It's clumsy with the blankets, but his fingertips still skim over her hip, dragging her shift upwards, and his palm settles over her breast for a moment. It peaks quickly under his warm hand, and he must feel it because his cock twitches against her belly, where they're turned and pressed together. He sucks at her neck and strokes her waist and mutters about how good she feels, how soft she is, how sweet she smells, and she clutches at his shoulders when he hikes her shift up and slides his hand between her thighs.

She can tell he's lost some weight beyond the walls when she slides her hand down his naked body to catch the length of him in the circle of her fingers. _He'll gain it back_, she thinks, somewhere in the back of her mind while he tugs on her earlobe with his teeth. Lean as he is, he's still warm and solid against her, and then under her, after he rolls to his back and pulls her with him so that he can whisk her shift off and toss it away.

He groans her name again—her half-name, the one that only he uses—and digs his blunt nails into the flesh of her hips when she starts to move over him. And _gods _but he feels good, and Myrcella pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and lets her head bow forward.

Before she'd left for Winterfell, Lord Stark had let her see her mother one last time. Queen Cersei had grabbed Myrcella's arms in a bruising embrace and hissed in her ear to be patient, to wait, that she and Uncle Jaime and her grandfather Tywin would bring her back as soon as they could. _Starks are disgusting wolves and he'll fuck you like a bitch_, her mother had told her, green eyes glittering with rage and bitterness. _They can dress you up in a wolf's cloak and get a litter of wolf pups off of you but you're a lioness, my little lion cub, through and through. Remember your pride. We'll lay siege to that hellhole and bring you home before the first snows of Winter fall._

In spite of her mother's words that set her trembling on her wedding night, lying with Robb has never been unpleasant. Even now, Robb stares up at her with glazed eyes and parted lips, and pride _does_ bloom in Myrcella's chest, though she's sure it's not what her mother had spoken of. She shakes her hair forward and he pushes his hands through it, pulls her down for a sloppy kiss. The wedge she's purposefully driven between them exists only outside of her bedchamber door. She did it for herself, because she had believed her mother blindly as a young bride. For years, she'd waited on pins and needles for a raven's message to tell Robb that her brother had come of age and had raised his armies, but it never came. She'd waited for Robb to lash out at her in anger, to shove and hit her, to force her into her bedchamber like she'd watched her father do to her mother.

Old Nan had warned her of Robb's wolfsblood, which makes him quick to anger and quick to judge, but it also makes him quick to love and adore. Myrcella still remembers the tears in Robb's eyes when he'd sat on the edge of her bed and cradled Brandyn to his chest, uncaring that the babe was still crusty and bloody in places. He's never looked at her the way he looks at Brandyn, but Myrcella gasps against his sweaty neck when she realizes that she might want him to. She has her mother's face, and he has her father's name, but they don't have to have her parents' marriage, filled with icy glares and sharp words. They can be warm and soft, like the way Lord Stark had cupped Lady Stark's cheeks and kissed her oh-so-sweetly when they'd all left for Storm's End.

And Myrcella _wants_ to be warm.

So after Robb wraps his arms around her back and jerks with his release, Myrcella rolls to his side and runs her fingertips through the crisp curls on his chest. They're bright red, like the ones on his and Brandyn's heads, and they nearly glow in the firelight. "You don't have to go back to your own chambers," she tells him, even though she's never shared a bed with anyone before, not even once. He turns his head on the pillow to stare at her. "It's cold out there." Here is where she would have dropped her eyes to avoid anything more than physical contact, but she doesn't, not this time.

"Aye, quite chilly." He turns to his side and runs his thumb down her arm, still giving her a searching gaze. "My parents shared this bedchamber after we moved back from Riverrun," he tells her, in a quieter voice. "I was nearly six moons old before I slept through the night, and my father wanted to help my mother with their naughty son."

Myrcella smiles. "We've had luck with Brandyn, then."

"He has his mother's temperament," Robb concedes, and then huffs out a sigh and rubs his head into the pillow. "I doubt my legs would carry me, in any case. Elbow me if I snore—you've a set of sharp ones on you, my lady." He graces her with a sleepy wink before rolling to his back once more, tucking his arm under Myrcella's neck and tugging her into his side.

He's asleep within minutes, exhaustion dragging him down into deep and steady breaths, but Myrcella lies awake for a little while, watching the fire and listening to Robb's heartbeat under her ear. _I'm not cold_, she notes, before the world fades away. _Not even my toes_. And when she wakes to the sound of the maid stoking the fire and the feel Robb pressed along her back, she thinks it's not a terrible way to wait for the sunrise.

* * *

_Fin._

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